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June 12, 2013

OAKLAND -- A's manager Bob Melvin is fond of calling Coco Crisp the team's "energizer" atop the lineup and Yoenis Cespedes a confidence-breeding influence in the middle. The lineup is missing both tonight against the Yankees.

Cespedes left last night's game with left hamstring tightness that he felt after running out a first-inning groundout. Melvin said it doesn't seem like a substantial injury -- Cespedes was expected to take batting practice tonight and looked to be moving well in pre-game agility drills -- but the A's don't want to take chances with turning it into a bigger problem.

"It's a big hamstring on top of that," Melvin said. "We don't want to see that thing pulled."

Crisp felt some discomfort in his foot last night. Melvin said it just popped up during the game but wasn't enough to warrant taking Crisp out of the game, since he could still run. It was still bothering him this morning, Melvin said, and though he felt better after getting to the park and getting treatment, the A's -- again -- don't want to take chances.

Melvin said both could "potentially" be available to pinch-hit.

When both Crisp and Cespedes are in the starting lineup this season, the A's are 27-8. But both have missed time with injuries -- Cespedes has played in 52 of the A's 66 games, Crisp in 48 -- and the A's are 12-19 when one of them is out.

"Obviously the results would suggest we do very well when they're both in there," Melvin said. "But again, we have to try to keep them healthy. Even if it is a day or so, if we give htem an extra day, we want to make sure they're not playing on something that's bothering them for an extended period of time, because both of them have to use their legs in what they do."

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About Bay Area Baseball

Matt Kawahara was born in Sacramento and attended McClatchy High School and UC Berkeley, where he wrote for the independent student paper The Daily Californian. He graduated from Cal in 2010 and started at The Sacramento Bee as a summer intern. He joined The Beeâ€™s sports staff in fall 2011.
Email: mkawahara@sacbee.com.
Phone: (916) 321-1015.
On Twitter: @matthewkawahara.